Friday, December 22, 2006

Dark days


I haven't written anything in a while because I keep waiting for a cute mom-baby moment to write about. But that hasn't really happened. Jack will be 5 weeks old tomorrow and he spends all of his energy growing. It's important but it's not cute. He cries a lot and sleeps in 1-3 hour increments. This is what babies do. When people said having a baby is hard I had no idea what that meant. This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done and I have at least one moment a day when I think I cannot do it.

I am reluctant to admit that the baby blues has blossomed into full depression. At least we are more honest about that phenomenon now. How sad that our awareness was raised only after Andrea Yates killed all of her kids. I hate to say it but I understand how isolation can make you feel incompetent and totally crazy. I have a great community and enough sense to seek help so I (hopefully) will never cross the line to the world of true insanity.

Even though I am in 2 support groups, no one talks about the sadness around losing your life and identity to raise a child. It feels like failure so I understand why no one wants to admit it. Also in fairness I think my problem is hormonal. Some women's hormones don't have this effect on them.

Anyway, I wanted to take a cute picture of Jack in the bear outfit his mom but this was all I could get.

1 comment:

thevioletpear said...

I hear you - no one told me how hard it would be, or how sad I would be to lose my "old life". My mom had 6 kids and she never told me anything! I wonder if maybe I'm wimpy or something, I mean she did it with SIX kids, and I can hardly do it with one! I'm sorry to hear about your post-partum D, but it is good to be able to admit it. But I think even if someone would have said to me "it is so hard, you will cry every day" etc etc I still wouldn't know what it really meant. Maybe. It's all about surviving really. I remember the first few weeks I would alternate crying between sadness of missing my old life and how precious my baby was. My baby is 9 months old and STILL only sleeps in 1-3 hour increments...I say jokingly, but truthfully, that donovan is the cutest torture device. I hope your baby learns to sleep, and I know plenty of people that have babies that sleep, but one thing I would do differently is putting the baby to sleep drowsy and awake but not passed out and not nursing to sleep everytime! Who knows if it would have done anything different, but *perhaps* I'd have a baby that slept. I just have to tell myself it won't be forever. Good luck and merry christmas... I don't think we got a cute pic of donovan until a couple months old!